Kurt Eichenwald writes today in Newsweek: “The response of Donald Trump and his staff on September 29 to the revelation that one of his companies illegally violated the Cuban trade embargo during Fidel Castro’s presidency has exposed a growing problem for the Republican nominee: His campaign operation is disorganized and shares Trump’s disdain for facts.”

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Topps has released a 2016 Presidential campaign themed “Garbage Pail Kids” edition. They’re updating the series pretty quickly! There’s already a Donald Trump vs. Alicia Machado card.

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Former Escambia County, Florida deputy Michael Wohlers visited Stephanie Byron in June 2015 at the apartment building where she worked, where he stole her glass of sweet tea and refused to return it. When Byron approached Wohlers to get her drink back, he tased her in the chest and throat, then jumped on her supine body, knelt on her chest, and removed the taser prods, apparently to try to cover up his wrongdoing.
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This video depicts a man in the Dijon Apple store smashing up phones and laptops with a metal ball. Everyone just lets him get on with it, presumably for legal reasons or corporate policy. By the time a mall cop arrives, he’s already done.

Here’s the sequel, wherein he is detained.

Here’s part 3, wherein he gets physical with the guards, then runs for it. Sadly for him, he’s the center of attention for the whole mall and someone prevents his escape.

I wonder if the sunglasses helped him conceal his identity.

POLL: WHY?

• He updated to iOS 10

• He is possessed: the Perfectly Spherical Kilogram of Silicon hungers for souls

• Gamergate

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California police departments’ license to steal cash from innocent people has been restricted, thanks to a new bill signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown. Let’s hope the federal government follows suit.

Nick Sibilla of The Institute for Justice says:

Since 1994, California state law has required a criminal conviction before real estate, vehicles, boats and cash under $25,000 could be forfeited to the government. But those requirements are completely missing under federal law. So California police could instead partner with a federal agency, take the property under federal law, and reap up to 80 percent of the proceeds.

To fix this, the new law requires a criminal conviction before agencies can receive forfeiture payments from the federal government on forfeited real estate, vehicles, boats and cash valued at under $40,000.

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Arizona State University’s Imagination and Climate Futures Initiative held a short story contest to write “climate fiction,” judged by Kim Stanley Robinson and others; now the best stories have been collected in a free downloadable ebook that includes a forward by Robinson, and an interview with Paolo Bacigalupi.
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It’s time for me to get a new wallet. I just ordered this “minimalist leather slim front pocket wallet” for $5.59 (using coupon code 5TEE8S7P on Amazon). I don’t know when the code will expire. I’ll give this a proper review after I’ve used it for a while.

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See sample pages from this book at Wink.

Woman Rebel: The Margaret Sanger Story

by Peter Bagge

Drawn and Quarterly

2013, 104 pages, 6.8 x 9.1 x 0.7 inches (hardcover)

$15 Buy a copy on Amazon

When I think of Peter Bagge, I think of his work in Hate or Neat Stuff, both comics about teenage angst and living in suburban malaise. Therefore, when I saw he wrote Woman Rebel, a biography of Margaret Sanger (the woman responsible for Planned Parenthood), I was curious. Once I started reading, it made perfect sense. Discontent, anger, and frustration with the status quo translate perfectly to the life of Ms. Sanger. Margaret Sanger is most famously known as the founder of Planned Parenthood and for her endless fight for women’s access to birth control in the early 20th century. The book highlights key moments in Sanger’s life – it starts with her childhood (she was born in the 1880s to Irish immigrants) and takes us through her early work as a nurse, mother, and eventual activist.

What makes this biography unique are Bagge’s illustrations. His faces, especially the contorted, frustrated ones that work in Bagge’s earlier work (say, on his teenage anti-hero Buddy Bradley) cross over really well. There is a lot of sadness and anger in Sanger’s life, whether it was her mother (who had 18 pregnancies in 25 years) or Sanger herself facing the many smug and misogynistic critics attempting to halt her progress. There is a lot of emotion in this book, the same that made Sanger persevere.

After reading Woman Rebel, I went online to learn more about Sanger and was immediately slammed by my own ignorance as to what a controversial person she is today. Aside from any expected generic criticism of Planned Parenthood, she is described as a “racist eugenicist” and guilty of “black genocide.” Bagge addresses this controversy in his afterword “Why Sanger?” He delves into how she advocated birth control to women of the KKK (that’s right – the KKK – another reason why this book is full of surprises) as well as black women living in Harlem. Bagge gives lots of examples of how her legacy has been dissected over time, and Bagge’s description of her critics is great: “It’s an irony festival!”

Regardless of how you feel about Margaret Sanger’s legacy, this book is an illustrated education into a woman, that as Bagge puts it, “lived the lives of ten people,” and is directly responsible for the access women have to reproductive health care in 2016. The only actual criticism of this book for me is that I wanted more. The book could be twice the length, and dive deeper into more details of her life, because it seems they are endless.

– Amy Lackpour

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A YouTuber who goes my the moniker De Facto has instructions for building a gyroscopic wheel using a little DC motor, a 9V battery, a CD, a hard disk platter, some cork, and a dab of hot glue. Nifty!

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Watch what happens when this gentleman throws a carbonated beverage bottle on the concrete.

Wait for it…

See also:

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“What happens when you grow a pumpkin inside a plastic mold,” shared by IMGURian “WuTangClams.”

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Meet Ghost Robotics’ adorable Minitaur quadruped robot.

Here’s an excerpt from IEEE Spectrum’s interview with Avik De and Gavin Kenneally, who are on the development team at Professor Dan Koditschek’s lab at the University of Pennsylvania:

How the heck did you manage to get Minitaur to open that door?

De: I don’t know if it’s clear from the video, but there’s a lot going on. The robot is jumping, it perceives that the door handle is there, retracts the leg, and manipulates the door handle.

Kenneally: Just to go over it in a little bit more detail: It jumps up on its front two legs, doing a handstand, and then jumps. The back left leg is waiting to feel the door handle, so it kind of sticks that leg out and waits until it senses contact. Again, all the sensing is through the motors, there’s no current sensors or force sensors. Once it perceives contact with the door knob, it retracts the leg, moves it over a little bit, and then extends it, and that actually all happens within 50 milliseconds, so it’s incredibly fast. And then once it’s done that, the other back leg, which is now also in the air, pushes against the door to crack it open a little bit, and it also helps push the robot so it pitches back down toward the ground, where it then retracts the leg back and catches itself before it falls. The door opening and stair/fence climbing were done with help from T. Turner Topping. We’ve just submitted a paper on this these behaviors, and Avik has a bound paper forthcoming as well.

Robot opening a door like a cat

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Part of an ongoing series by weird chart-maker Scott Bateman; link to today’s edition.

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JWZ has discovered the greatest Google Image search.
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Thinkgeek’s $40 R2D2 French press coffee-pot starts shipping in early November, in time for Xmas delivery. Holds 32oz, BPA-free, and the carafe is dishwasher safe.
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It’s been thirteen years since we started writing here about the shenanigans of the electronic voting machine industry, who were given a gift when, after the contested 2000 elections, Congress and the Supreme Court signaled that elections officials had to go and buy new machines.

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The winner-take-all economy has turned virtually every industry into a cartel (four record labels, two cable companies, two phone operating systems, etc) who operate without fear of competition regulation, allowing representatives of a few companies to gather in closed-door meetings to cook up operating agreements that end up having the force of law.
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Besides stealing money from customers by creating fake accounts and then charging them fees, Wells Fargo is in trouble for repossessing 413 cars owned by US military service members. The bank did so without a court order, which violates federal law.

From CNN:

The Justice Department said the illegal repossessions took place from 2008 to 2015. The first complaint came from an Army National Guardsman in North Carolina who said the bank seized his car while he was preparing to deploy to Afghanistan.

Wells Fargo then auctioned his car and tried to collect a balance of $10,000 from his family, the Justice Department said.

The bank will pay $10,000 to each of the affected service members, plus lost equity in the cars with interest, and repair their credit.

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Machinist/sculptor Christ Bathgate (previously) can’t keep up with demand for his latest “pocket sculpture,” a kinetic piece that’s designed to be soothing to fidget with.

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In July, the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Dr Matthew Green, a Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute Assistant Professor of Computer Science; now the US government has asked a court to dismiss Dr Green’s claims. A brief from EFF explains what’s at stake here: the right of security experts to tell us which computers are vulnerable to attack, and how to make them better.

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On a Sunbeam is a science fiction webcomic from competitive figure skater/comics creator Tillie Walden. Next year, Firstsecond will publish a memoir about her 12 years as a skater; if On a Sunbeam is representative of her work, it’s a book to watch for.

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Before Pepe the Frog was a hate symbol used to promote white supremacists and Donald Trump, he was a sweet webcomics character in Matt Furie’s gently weird webcomic Boy’s Club.
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“Odnarotoop” is Portland spelled backwards with Japanese pronunciation. It’s also the name of this Terry Gilliam-esque video with a catchy song.

Here’s the English translation of the lyrics:

These are the mountains that rise in the distance

And this is the river that runs right beside us

And these are the bridges that always connect us in

Odnaraotoop

These are the streets where we meet up for breakfast

and maybe some ice cream or a few dozen donuts

and these are the places we drink when we’re finished in

Odnarotoop

Odnarotoop, Odnarotoop

everyone’s open, so do what you want to in Odnarotoop

And this is the music we play in our basements

and our in the street where the city can hear us

so sing right along if you’re planning to join us in Odnarotoop

Odnarotoop, Odnarotoop

everyone’s open, so do what you want to in Odnarotoop

This is the coffee we drink in the morning

and this is the treehouse my neighbor is building

everyone’s open and ready to greet you in Odnarotoop

And these are the bikes that we like to ride naked

and this is the art that we’re all busy making

everyone’s open so do what you want to in Odnarotoop

[via Tofugu]

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Following on last year’s successful campaign to produce a giant anthology of Hugo Award-nominated short fiction, David Steffen is once again raising funds for a second volume.
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Officer Jeff Thompson of the Little Rock Police Department arrested Arkansas state Representative John Walker for recording their treatment of a black man who had been put in handcuffs during a traffic stop.
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Lancashire Council is shutting down five of its museums, including Burnley’s Queen Street Mill Museum, widely known for its appearances in the King’s Speech, home to the last steam-powered mill in the world.

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Nick Bilton’s analysis of his Theranos exposé shows how bad actors like Elizabeth Holmes can misuse employees and government regulators, but he is especially critical of access journalism practiced in the business trades. It’s a great read for anyone who writes as part of their job. (more…)

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It’s got a catchy beat, I could dance to it! (And Peggy!)
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YouTuber SolarColorDust likes to coat things in thermochromic dust (the kind in mood rings and some thermometers). Here’s a stormtrooper helmet. (more…)

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An investigation by the Associated Press found 675 police officers were jailed or disciplined for misusing police databases from 2013 to 2015, and that’s just the ones who were caught.

Sadie Gurman and Eric Tucker used record requests to gather data on the scope of the problem.

Criminal-history and driver databases give officers critical information about people they encounter on the job. But the AP’s review shows how those systems also can be exploited by officers who, motivated by romantic quarrels, personal conflicts or voyeuristic curiosity, sidestep policies and sometimes the law by snooping. In the most egregious cases, officers have used information to stalk or harass, or have tampered with or sold records they obtained.

Among cops accused of database abuse was Gilberto Valle, aka “cannibal cop,” but his conviction was overturned after he claimed he was authorized to use it. Valle came into the public eye after posting online about his interest in kidnapping and eating women.

AP: Across US, police officers abuse confidential databases

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The Ghost Minitaur is the latest iteration of terrifyingly cute agile legged robots. I for one welcome our doglike robot overlords. (more…)

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Los Angeles is a car town, so it’s controversial to promote “road diets,” a form of roadway reconfiguration intended to slow cars and reduce collisions, especially with cyclists and pedestrians. Scientists reviewed data from one controversial road diet and found that crashes were cut in half, and unsafe speed crashes dropped to zero. (more…)

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Here’s the last image from Europe’s space probe Rosetta, taken 50m from the surface of 67P. (more…)

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#1. A-Audio Legacy Noise Cancelling Headphones with 3-Stage Technology

The A-Audio Legacy Headphones are the Boing Boing Store’s best seller this month, and it’s easy to see why. With 40mm drivers, powerful circuitry, and memory foam padded circumaural ear cups, these are clearly super high-quality headphones. Plus, the patented 3-Stage Technology lets you toggle between passive audio, bass-enhanced, and active noise cancelling modes, so you can always get the best listening experience. These headphones retail for $299, but you can get them for Bluetooth earbuds are selling out fast. These are some of the best Bluetooth earbuds we’ve found: they deliver up to a 10 hour battery life and charge fully in just 90 minutes. The best feature is that you can automatically connect them to your phone via Bluetooth by pulling them apart. When you’re done listening, place the earbuds back together, and the connection will turn off. They’re totally waterproof, and are designed to stay in your ears no matter what. Get them for just $39.95 in the store.

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